Starship Flight Test
Starship gave us quite a show during today’s first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Starbase in Texas.
At 8:33 a.m. CT, Starship successfully lifted off from the orbital launch pad for the first time. The vehicle cleared the pad and beach as Starship climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico – the highest of any Starship to-date. The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble. The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship. As is standard procedure, the pad and surrounding area was cleared well in advance of the test, and we expect the road and beach near the pad to remain closed until tomorrow.
With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship.
Thank you to our customers, Cameron County, and the wider community for the continued support and encouragement. And congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting first flight test of Starship!
Congrats to SpaceX. Unbelievable to see and witness
@Nick 🤦♂
@Alex Christopher i thought they were. PEACE.
@Alex Christopher lol when you set the bar so low anything could be considered a success.
@UFOpilot they weren’t planning to “land” anything.
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the quality of the stream, this is really well done
Idk, the guy’s voice was annoying at best and sounded way fruity lol. Much preferred listening to the woman
no
Let’s just take a moment to laugh.
@Cornelius Rupert Those “brain dead” people built the hardware and software for the rocket… They cheered because it well exceeded expectations for this test.
Просто невероятное испытание! Видели бы вы мою улыбку до ушей в момент запуска, эти эмоции не передать! Стартовая башня осталась цела, это победа! S24 и B7 выполнили свою миссиию, они навсегда останутся в наших сердцах! Следующий запуск будет совсем скоро!
@Harris697073 честно не знаю так хорошо историю ракетостроения, но определенно вижу, что строят ракету набивая свои шишки. Думаю в итоге всё должно получиться, ну надеюсь. Надеюсь потому, что мне нравятся целеустремленные люди и тем более инженеры.
Ура стартовая башня осталась жива!!! Слава богу, весь персонал в бункере тоже жив! Ура это прорыв 🙂
@Harris697073 Когда делали Н1 не было компьютеров и современных систем управления. В наши дни стало возможным эффективно управлять большим количеством двигателей.
😂
@Artem Не напоминает ли эта машина всем советскую сверхтяжёлую ракету-носитель Н1/Л3 с той же проблемой: слишком много двигателей!
Должно быть 3 двигателя макс. ЦЕЛОВАТЬ.
To be the first attempt to launch such a large and heavy spacecraft I feel obtimistic of what it can become. Thank you to all those involved in this work.
you will fly to mars but on brooms in metaverse 🙂
Russians are kings of rocket/engine industry. raptors engine suks 🛡️🇨🇳🛡️🇷🇸🛡️🇷🇺🛡️
I expected this. That flip was was way to aggressive. It’s too heavy for that IMO, but I’m not a rocket scientist, there are liquids that are moving inside of it too. They will probably do a more gradual flip on another attempt, or, separate, then flip. It’s just got a really wonky COM after it spends that much fuel no doubt.
@No Name And the fries will spin around and then explode.
@Lacinda Beggs your future will be, you want fries with that
The fact that they could apparently lose so many engines and were still capable of liftoff and sustaining the mission was very cool. That’s actually great redundancy and good safety feature.
Seemed like they were never able to completely shut down main engines so the starship was never allowed to separate.
I can’t believe the entire stack was able to flip like that without breaking in half.
Can’t wait to see the next one fly.
@My Cancer Vlog Sorry about your diagnosis. Hang in there 💪.
@Paul Holt No, no one at South Padre island or the starbase complex was ever in danger, the flight termination system (FTS) would have blown it up the moment it started leaving the approved safety corridor.
@TheJumper What? It’s called a test flight. They use the data from such tests to perfect the performance. Far from reckless, all calculated and expected. It was launched over water for safety. Be mindful, any products you use is the final alpha product not the beta.
I wouldn’t call that sustaining the mission, they massively undershot their staging altitude. It was supposed to stage somewhere above 80km at it staged at 40. Not exactly a situation that could be salvaged, even if aero forces didn’t cause instability
Dear team,
I would like to express my deepest gratitude for all the hard work and dedication that you have put into this Starship Flight test. It is truly impressive to see the result of the collective effort of all of you!
It is difficult to express in words how much I appreciate the work of each and every one of you. You have made possible something that many would consider impossible!
I also want to express my gratitude for living in the same period as you are achieving these incredible feats. It is an exciting and inspiring moment in human history, and I feel honored to be able to witness it.
Once again, thank you all for your incredible work and the team spirit that made all of this possible. You are true heroes and heroines.
Kind regards,
Daniel Feliz
@John Mackay Hello, At every second of flight, the Starship sent thousands of data to the tower on everything imaginable. And this information will be useful for future projects. Can you imagine how many light bulbs exploded before the success of the project? We are evolving with space technology… Hugs!
Well said Sir!!
Why? It exploded.
Позор🎉
lmao nice using ChatGPT to even comment here
44:53 – Countdown
47:50 – KSP veterans already know where it’s going
49:03 – Rapid unscheduled disassembly
Nothing more engine and stage cant fix
Star Citizen veterans realize that alpha brings alpha problems. Go SpaceX!
Ayup! Back to the VAB.
Not enough struts
lol
“Everything after clearing the tower, was icing on the cake” – Such a strong statment on not to give up! Congrats SpaceX!
@NoZVT You didn’t get the point of my comment i think
A sour grapes statement. If you are unfamiliar with this reference – look up the fox and the grapes.
@Richard depends how you look at it imo. it was all good untill that point that something failed but from that we learn and improve. was all the test a failure ? of course it wasnt
No, it’s a statement to prevent the uneducated from yelling that it’s a failure. Giving up was not a topic in the first place.
Congrats SpaceX for first flight test of Starship. This will be a small step in starship history.
The fact that Starship cleared the tower, survived an early explosion, then surpassed Max Q, and endured all those unusual attitude lateral forces is stunning. They surely got a lot of great data.
The structural teams will be very happy that the stack held together. Pity the second stage refused to detach. Strong machine for sure.
@Brian Barrett The only minute it went RUD is because the Flight Termination System was detonated by the ground crew, destroying the vehicle
My kerbal ships break up after 1 flip normally. Got 4 before she went RUD.